World Conference on Lung Cancer

February 15, 2021 - The combination of lurbinectedin and irinotecan following relapse on frontline treatment was found to induce promising antitumor activity in patients with small cell lung cancer.

January 28, 2021 - Pembrolizumab continued to demonstrate a clinically meaningful improvement in overall and progression-free survival, compared with docetaxel, in patients with previously treated, PD-L1–positive advanced non-small cell lung cancer after more than 5 years of follow-up.

January 28, 2021 - The addition of apatinib to single agent chemotherapy showed promising efficacy and was found to be well tolerated in patients with pretreated advanced small cell lung cancer.

Sintilimab injection plus pemetrexed and platinum-based therapy led to a statistically significant improvement in progression-free survival compared with chemotherapy alone as a first-line treatment for patients with locally advanced or metastatic nonsquamous non–small cell lung cancer.

The third-generation TKI osimertinib (AZD9291) showed a 71% objective response rate in patients with EGFR T790M-mutant non–small cell lung cancer following resistance to frontline anti-EGFR therapy.

Coexisting driver mutations in EGFR-mutant non–small cell lung cancer could potentially contribute to primary resistance to EGFR-targeted therapy.

The addition of cetuximab (Erbitux) to chemotherapy reduced the risk of death by 44% for patients with advanced squamous non–small cell lung cancer whose tumors test positive for EGFR gene amplification.

The addition of bevacizumab (Avastin) to adjuvant chemotherapy did not improve overall survival in patients with surgically resected early-stage non–small cell lung cancer.

Survival for patients with metastatic squamous non–small cell lung cancer whose tumors were positive for EGFR copy number as determined by FISH analysis tended to be better when the EGFR antibody necitumumab was added to their conventional chemotherapy.

Continued treatment with gefitinib beyond progression exhibited a trend toward better outcomes in patients with T790M-negative non­–small cell lung cancer.

Joshua M. Bauml, MD, assistant professor, University of Pennsylvania, discusses a novel IT platform designed to enhance lung cancer clinical trial enrollment.

Lorraine Pelosof, MD, PhD, from The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, discusses a study looking at the incidence of never smokers diagnosed with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

Pasi A. Jänne, MD, PhD, director, Lowe Center for Thoracic Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discusses biomarker results from the AURA study of AZD9291.

Barbara J. Gitlitz, MD, from the University of Southern California, discusses results and key takeaways from The Genomics of Young Lung Cancer Study.

A chemotherapy-free regimen of nivolumab and ipilimumab demonstrated activity as a first-line therapy for patients with advanced non–small cell lung cancer.

Treatment with the PD-1 inhibitor nivolumab demonstrated a 32% reduction in the risk of death compared with docetaxel for patients with previously treated squamous non–small cell lung cancer.

Most patients younger than age 40 with lung cancer had tumors with mutations that can be targeted with existing therapies.

Adding bevacizumab (Avastin) to a standard chemotherapy doublet reduced the risk of death by 24% and disease progression by 39% in patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma.

Ramaswamy Govindan, MD, medical oncologist, Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, discusses a talk given at the 16th World Conference on Lung Cancer.

Patients with newly diagnosed metastatic non-small lung cancer had double the expected response when the PD-L1 inhibitor atezolizumab was added to chemotherapy.

Everett E. Vokes, MD, chair, Department of Medicine, investigator of head and neck and lung cancer, University of Chicago, discusses a plenary session that covered prevention and screening at the 16th World Conference on Lung Cancer.

Overregulation of new drug development has driven up the cost of care and resulted in significant loss of human life by delaying the approval of effective medications.